Barack Obama declines to put on a show of emotion for our edification.

But he did go on the Larry King show. What was the point of that except to massage our emotions? I guess it's a way to spend some time on camera without being pestered by any difficult questions. That way, we can gaze upon him and perhaps draw comfort from his flickering TV image, as we did in ages past.

Is this a criticism of Obama? I am finding it increasingly difficult to follow the bizarre and nonsensical lines of reasoning deployed on this site.

Only idiots would demand Obama "show more emotion." What the hell does that even mean? Who are these people? Do they think things through for even a split second? Are they children?

The opposition-- Republicans, mostly-- in this country, still cannot get over losing the election to this Kenyan. Every day is a jabbering, hysterical attempt to find something to be outraged about. I wish they would take some valium.

The feeling that the leader is not seeing the goals we want to be lead towards is frustrating the intuitive types that saw good in him. But that can also be explained by his super rational use of every chess move to corner his opponents. We see that in the magnificent Humanitarian Aid Flotilla gambit he set up. We see that in the "shut down our use of oil, gas and coal and fund energy by government subsidised wind power" which is the next cash cow his Chi-town gang has their eye on using to rob us blind with.

Actually, we would be much better off if he spent all of his time in office venting and yelling at people. With few exceptions, whenever he takes action it's bad for the country.

We don't want or need to see him on Larry King (actually, nobody sees anyone on Larry King), we need him to be in a room with BP's executives and engineers working WITH THEM to solve the problem; offering the vase resources he commands to aid in capping, keeping the oil from shore and clean up; providing ships, manpower, whatever will help.

Instead, he appears on Larry King and his admin has "sicced" the lawyers on him.

David Axelrod is good at campaigning, but there is not anyone in that entourage that has a clue about how to solve a practical problem. Or a political one for that matter, in terms of moving either the bureaucracy or Congress.

I do think it's amusing that the president's allies are trying to make the story about whether he is displaying enough emotion. It's ridiculous. Goes with the belief (which The One shares) that he can get out of any situation just by giving a really good speech. At the end of the day, talk is cheap.

Look. I will try to help you. But I want you to take this seriously. Make a list of all the things that this post could mean. I could do one of my polls with options and let you vote, but really, for your own good, you try to list the options. Try to get at least 4. 5 or 6 would be better. Then look at the list you have produced, reflect, and write 2 or 3 sentences explaining what you have just learned about reading this blog.

Without getting involved in the substance of Mr Obama's remarks, I am more interested in the forum--if he wanted to say this he could have simply made a nation wide address from the oval office--the medium is the message here I fear.

Monty: On your keyboard in the upper right corner is a button labelled "del". Surely you are smart enough to use it. This is a blog, not a peer reviewed journal.

And the media are not any better. Emoting on TV or getting "the best scientific minds" from Los Alamos and Harvard together to ponder the problem is not going to either stop the leak or protect our shores.

Well my take is that he's been criticized quite a bit for looking aloof and detached from what is going on in the Gulf. The problem for Obama is that absent the Gulf spill, that aloof, detached look is otherwise credited as being 'thoughtful' and 'intelligent'.

Now Bill Clinton would have provided the emotion with some glistening eyes and biting lip at the sight of the oil drenched pelicans (feeling the pain of the Gulf residents and all that) but that's not Obama's schtick.

King provided him a secure forum to tell everyone that for the first time in his life, this isn't all about him. I'll disagree with Althouse in that Obama needs to realize that image is what got him into the White House but when there is a crisis to deal with, image means a lot too.

Obama seems detached. Like this is a minor annoyance to his bigger legislative schedule.

I think that is a good part of it. I remember Carville a week or so ago about how the people were dying down there, or something like that. Vacation, golf, fund raisers, McCartney are just not the type of things that a leader does when everyone at the bottom in the Gulf is suffering. Or getting ready to suffer, etc.

But let me remind everyone that this is what the American voters chose 1 1/2 year ago. It was this detachment, as compared to McCain's jumping in, during the financial crisis, that really shifted the dynamics of the election, and where Obama jumped ahead for the first time after the Republican Convention. After that, the Republicans tried to play catch up, and couldn't for the rest of the campaign.

1. Obama would like to yell at someone. That would make him happy, but he doesn't do it (at least not in front of cameras)because "That's not the job I was hired to do."

2. There is a lot of responsibility imputed here: He wasn't really made to do this job--he worked very hard to get it. His job is really just to make himself look good. The best way to do that is look like he is in control. If it suited his needs to rant & rave, he would be happy to do that instead.

3. He really can't do anything about the oil situation. He knows this and sensible people know this, but he must look like he is doing something--for all the rubes.

4. Obama's job, as he sees it, is to look like he knows what he is doing.

5. Answering questions will not further this, since it will only reveal his powerless general clueless nature with regards to technology.

Clinton would have bit his lip and empathized on TV all right, but his people would also have explained to key bureaucrats what was going to happen to them if they did not see some assholes and elbows out there working PDQ.

3. He really can't do anything about the oil situation. He knows this and sensible people know this, but he must look like he is doing something--for all the rubes.

I think that this is a falsehood being spun by the White House and picked up by the MSM.

What is being done here is slight of hand. You are correct that the government is ill suited in stopping the spill. That is BP's job, and that is where it is better qualified to come up with a workable solution.

But the place where the slight of hand comes in, is in the assumption that this means that the government has no role here, and no ability to act.

And that is false. What is (IMHO deliberately) being ignored is that the place where it can act, and legally must act, and isn't, is in what to do with the oil after it has leaked out of the ground. I am talking the containment and disbursement of the oil, keeping it out of the wetlands, and ultimately cleaning it up.

Yes, BP is financially responsible, and I see this potentially bankrupting the company. But they took a gamble, skipped installing the tertiary back up system, and lost.

But that doesn't absolve the government, and therefore this Administration, with its legal duty to protect our coasts from the spill. They have been better placed than BP from day one in this area, and have performed miserably.

This is the slight of hand, pointing at BP and that that company has to be in charge of plugging the leak, in order to divert attention from the fact that the Administration was failing abjectly in preventing the oil from washing ashore and causing ecological damage. And what is esp. egregious, is that environmental laws are being utilized to prevent actions that would alleviate some, if not much, of this environmental damage.

Obama is like someone on the local news. He says everything in the same tone of voice, with exactly the same modulation. Even talking off-the-prompter he sounds staid and rehearsed.

Remember how awful Bush sounded on 9/11? He sounded detached and unengaged. It was apparent in the next day or two, when he really took charge, that that poor performance was just due to shock.

But Obama sounds that way all the time, whatever the circumstances. It's alarming. You can't tell when he cares, or what he really cares about. Then it's exacerbated when his actions contradict what he's saying. It's a big problem.

I think the point was to respond to all the people that follow editorialists like Maureen Dowd and Andrew Sullivan (or the people that agree with them/that they channel or represent); and to reiterate again what he is doing, and what he sees as his role in this.

Anything Obama does or doesn't do is viewed as a show of emotion -- so better to have that show of emotion be a response to the critiques rather than a non-response, which would only reinforce the notion that he's spock or a WASP or too cool or whatever some people think.

Sorry, but this line of criticism, that Obama's not doing enough, would be more palatable if we hadn't heard for a year and a half that the is doing too much.

I agree he should do more on this (even though there's not a lot he can do), but his statement makes a good point. Getting emotional about it would serve no purpose. Besides, if he did get emotional, there'd be a post about how "unhinged" he'd become. You guys just hate him no matter what he does. That's your right, but stop pretending otherwise.

reportorial Althouse:(a headline consisting solely of a quote)The quote leads, as it often does on Althouse. Maybe it speaks for itself, maybe this time it doesn't. Let's add some commentary!

sardonic Althouse:Barack Obama declines to put on a show of emotion for our edification.Let's cut into this pretentiousness a bit.

irritable Althouse:What was the point of that except to massage our emotions?Althouse doesn't like being manipulated blatantly and gracelessly. Let's have some subtlety in the emotional manipulation, please.

analytical Althouse:I guess it's a way to spend time on camera without being pestered by any difficult questions.Althouse proposes a political reason why Obama might have gone on Larry King, in contradiction to his own statement about what he was hired for. Whatever he thinks he was hired to do, it wasn't to go on talk shows.

wistful Althouse:... perhaps draw comfort from his flickering TV image, as we did in ages past.Althouse reminisces about those days when she felt inspired by Obama. Was it really only a year and a half ago?

self-deprecating Althouse:... perhaps draw comfort from his flickering TV image, as we did in ages past.Or is Althouse inviting some friendly mockery for her unrealistic reaction to Obama, and mocking herself?

enigmatic Althouse: (the entire post)So many different moods in so few sentences!

I am finding it increasingly difficult to follow the bizarre and nonsensical lines of reasoning deployed by the President.

Only idiots would demand anything of Obama. What the hell does that even mean? Who are these people? Do they think things through for even a split second? Are they children?

Democrats in this country, still cannot get very much done despite having control of the Executive and Legislative branches. Every day is a jabbering, hysterical attempt to find something to blame on Republicans. I wish they would take some valium.

Sorry, but this line of criticism, that Obama's not doing enough, would be more palatable if we hadn't heard for a year and a half that the is doing too much.

I would respectfully disagree. He did too much when he wanted to grow the government and prop up unions and their pension plans. Nationalizing 1/6 of the economy in order to make sure that 30 million or so Americans (many of them slackers) have health insurance, is too much.

But, then, when it is time to act, and to protect our country, he doesn't. He sits on the side lines, plays golf, goes on vacations and to fundraisers, and enjoys an evening with a Beatle. And this is especially egregious when he has, in essence, been claiming that we need a much bigger government to take care of us. But when it comes to that government actually taking care of us, he is noticeably MIA.

So, maybe I should turn this around for all the liberals here, and suggest hypocrisy when he asks for more government, but fails to use the powers he has when it is time for that government to act to protect us from all the oil washing ashore.

Sorry, but this line of criticism, that Obama's not doing enough, would be more palatable if we hadn't heard for a year and a half that the is doing too much.

Right. We're all hypcorites for pointing out that Obama is not fullfilling his duties as proscribed by the Clean Water Act of 1990.

Such logic...

"The Clean Water Act of 1990 (33 USC § 1251 et seq.) requires the President to ensure effective and immediate removal of an oil discharge and, where there is substantial threat to public health or welfare, requires the President to require all Federal, State and private actions to remove the oil discharge or mitigate it."

I got to thinking about Truman's comment on Eisenhower: "Poor Ike. He will sit there in the White House and say, "Do this and do that," and nothing will happen.This was Truman's conception of generals, but he was wrong about Eisenhower. It was not that long ago that Ike was a lowly major in charge of getting the generals to move, and he was quite good at it, which is why Marshall picked him for Allied Commander in Europe over a long row of seniors.

Now we really do have a president who sits in the White House and says, "Do this and do that," or that he wishes they would, and either nothing happens or the cats take off in whatever directions they happen to like.

"My job is to solve this problem and ultimately this isn't about me and how angry I am."

If he says it isn't about him, it means he needs to deflect attention from his ineptitude.

Frankly, Ann nails the reason to go on King with the line, "it's a way to spend some time on camera without being pestered by any difficult questions.". He can't solve it because he can only do the political thing - point an accusing finger. Nobody in this administration really can do anything except come up with new ways for the federal government to aggrandize its power and control over people's lives.

Hagar said...

Clinton would have bit his lip and empathized on TV all right, but his people would also have explained to key bureaucrats what was going to happen to them if they did not see some assholes and elbows out there working PDQ.

Based on the historical record, Willie's people would have figured a way to sweep it under the rug for his successor to fix.

Sorry, but this line of criticism, that Obama's not doing enough, would be more palatable if we hadn't heard for a year and a half that the is doing too much.

Here let me help you tear that strawman down. It wasn't that he was doing too much it was that he was spending too much. I would preferred had he done too much to create jobs rather than a new trillion dollar entitlement.

Besides, if he did get emotional, there'd be a post about how "unhinged" he'd become. You guys just hate him no matter what he does. That's your right, but stop pretending otherwise.

I don't think anyone is looking for tears, rage or even a heavy sigh but something, anything that demonstrates that he cares or is interested. His perpetual tennis game swivel head speeches all.sound.the.same.

Ebenezer Scrooge: Spirit, what perversity is this? I've asked to see some emotion connected with that man's death... and you've shown me only greed, and malice, and apathy! Let me see some TENDERNESS, some... DEPTH OF FEELING!

His job is NOT to fix this problem. He is a manager. His job is to direct people under him to find engineers to work on this, and free up the resources he commands to help them, then get out of the way. No one expects a politician/lawyer to fix anything.

I agree on some of those points (though he didn't "nationalize" 1/6 of the economy, not even for the slackers). He should have acted earlier and been more forceful, even if Rand Paul thinks that's "unAmerican". I don't think Obama is blameless in this whole circus of a response.

But based on your comment, I have a feeling that if and when Obama or Congress takes a preventative action, fixing a clearly broken MMS and tightening the regulations, you will call that "doing too much".

Before you answer, consider that BP gave all kinds of reassurances to the government (with few details) over the last few years that they could prevent something like this. They also said they could contain a spill 10 times worse than this one. The MMS just took their word for it. The MMS also cut lots of regulatory corners and gave BP a pass on all kinds of safety regulations.

It's clear that the regulatory structure was weak or nonexistent, and that directly contributed to this disaster.

So when Obama goes to fix that agency, will you say he's doing "too much"? Because I guarantee that plenty of oil industry shills, Fox "News" hacks and political partisans will, despite all the contradictory evidence staring them right in the face.

I have a feeling that if and when Obama or Congress takes a preventative action, fixing a clearly broken MMS and tightening the regulations, you will call that "doing too much".

Well that depends entirely on what those regulations are. There is good regulation and there is bad regulation. The key is finding the balance of what works without completely stifling productivity and profit.

The MMS just took their word for it. The MMS also cut lots of regulatory corners and gave BP a pass on all kinds of safety regulations.

Well you seem to be arguing that the government agency charged with regulating failed pretty much in the same manner as the private industry.

It's clear that the regulatory structure was weak or nonexistent, and that directly contributed to this disaster.

Another blinding flash of insight! And ladies and gentlemen herein lies the problem. Government imposes regulations, government fails to enforce regulations; shit hits the fan and the answer is: lets create more regulations.

Jim, there are those of us who are watching lack of enforcement every day. Start with the damn US-Mexico border, financial services, coal mines and now MMS. You're going to see few conservatives complaining that the government enforce the regulations that are on the books. Thats thier damn job!

"......They also said they could contain a spill 10 times worse than this one. The MMS just took their word for it. The MMS also cut lots of regulatory corners and gave BP a pass on all kinds of safety regulations.."

Since these agencies are headed and filled by lawyers and social science majors how would they know whether or not BP could contain these types of disasters?

It takes scientific and engineering expertise to do this and and regulatory agencies just don't have it. Those who can do; those who can't regulate.

"For every Federal law, rule, or regulation that requires you to do this-and that in such-and-such a situation, there are at least two other laws, rules, or regulations that says to do something else."

So the bureaucrats get to choose per their personal inclinations as to what they think of the matter and, of course, you.

And the charge about BP lying to the Feds is a crock. For this kind of thing, they must plan very detailed plans for approval and can't proceed without that approval. That is part of the problem here, at least for the clean-up. The plans needed to be changed in a hurry when the unexpected happened, and they can't get approvals because everybody are trying to cover their own asses and pointing at the next guy or theagency.

And, while I do not know, I can't believe that an operation on the scale of a drilling platform can proceed without at least one Federal inspector - pardon I mean "observer" - on board.

Jim said: "but this line of criticism, that Obama's not doing enough, would be more palatable if we hadn't heard for a year and a half that he is doing too much."

This seems to be the latest "Obama-can-do-no-wrong" meme (remember when it was "Obama's only been in office 30/60/90 days"?). Let me explain to people like danielle and Jim how this excuse looks to people outside the cult:

"I can't believe my boss is threatening to fire me for not doing my job. I'm busy snorting coke, surfing porn, and embezzling money practically the entire time I'm at the office. I even put in extra hours! My boss needs to make up his damned mind: am I doing too much, or am I not doing enough."

(See, sometimes people care *what* it is you are doing, and *not* just that you're doing something.)

But there's more to being a leader than the two extremes of yelling and pounding the table, and passivity. I think that there are things that Barack Obama could have his administration do that he hasn't done, and expediting the sand berms that Gov. Jindal wants to build would be high on that list.

This seems to be the latest "Obama-can-do-no-wrong" meme (remember when it was "Obama's only been in office 30/60/90 days"?).

My own personal favorite, out of all the hapless leftist attempts to shield Jug-Eared Jesus from the increasingly dire record of his own administration, is the rote, numbskull squawking of "Bush's fault! Bush's fault! AWWWWWK!," as the now virtually daily horror show of Obama Brand mendacities piled high atop of incompetencies proceeds apace.

Can't run on the economy, as his own bumbling attempts to manipulate it have only resulted in tripling the size of the deficit since assuming office. Can't run on job creation, as he's already gone on the record as stating that, on Earth-Obama, 9.5 - 10% unemployment is "the new normal." Can't run on principled opposition to "illegal wars," as he's ploddingly continuing with both of 'em, all previous campaign promises notwithstanding. Can't run on Obamacare, as poll after poll after poll continues to show a steadily increasing majority of voters in steadfast favor of repealing said Obamanation. Can't even run on the concept of simply core competence, given his jaw-droppingly tone deaf insistence upon not just one, but two, count 'em, TWO! vacations during the apocalyptic oil spill.

Seriously. At this point, he's actually making Carter seem (comparatively) quick-witted and effective, in retrospect. ;)

Can't run on the economy, as his own bumbling attempts to manipulate it have only resulted in tripling the size of the deficit since assuming office. Can't run on job creation, as he's already gone on the record as stating that, on Earth-Obama, 9.5 - 10% unemployment is "the new normal."

This is scary because most government jobs are parasitic. That means that we need private sector jobs to support the public sector, and that is clearly impossible when 19 out of every 20 jobs created in May were government jobs.

(In defense here though, I will note that a lot of those government jobs are with the Census, which is Constitutionally mandated.)

"For every Federal law, rule, or regulation that requires you to do this-and that in such-and-such a situation, there are at least two other laws, rules, or regulations that says to do something else."

So the bureaucrats get to choose per their personal inclinations as to what they think of the matter and, of course, you.

I think that this is symptomatic of the problems with big government. Those on the left appear to be suggesting that the solution here is to impose more regulations (likely enough new ones to kill all offshore drilling, and not just deep sea drilling like here). So, we may find ourselves in the position of having three, not two regulations that say do something else.

And keep in mind that those being regulated are likely to know all those regulations better than the regulators - after all, until awhile ago, they were the regulators, until they were able to learn enough and build up enough contacts to be able to switch sides.

That assumes that the regulators are of a common mind. They aren't. Different agencies have different motivations and focuses. As a result, they invariably work at cross purposes.

The reason that this may be bad for President Obama is that he appears to believe in more, not less government, and more, not less, regulation. As if throwing more bureaucrats at any problem will fix it. (Unless they were to find that the bodies of bureaucrats were more efficient than golf balls in stopping the leak).

Obama doesn't need to yell and scream, but he does need to do more than he's doing now. He has two jobs with respect to the oil spill: (1) put the resources of the federal gov't into solving the problem, and (2) showing leadership, resolve, and unity with the American people. The first part may be going on, but it's been poorly communicated. The second point is where Obama is totally failing and where he's getting beat up in public opinion.

Presidents can build their reputations on how they react to crises. Bill Clinton had his moment after the OK City bombing. No matter what party you were, Clinton owned that moment and showed that he was our President. Same with Bush with the bullhorn after 9/11. Whatever happened in the following seven years, Bush owned that moment and spoke for America. Obama has yet to do something similar, to show us that he gets it.

"And why do so many Republican demand a government takeover of the response?"

You keep saying this over and over as if we've been living in a laissez-faire system for the last 200 years. Maybe you missed this but we've spent an eff-load on government. We now have a national debt of 13 trillion dollars. What do we have for that money?

Explain to me the use of passing more regulations when you are not enforcing the regulations you already have. What says that they will enforce the new regulations any more than the ones they already have.

This goes back to the problem with liberals all along in that they feel that if they talk about something, it is the same as if they actually did that thing.

Yeah! The job he was hired for was to fundamentally change America. Silly us to think he meant for the better.

And he's lying when he says it isn't about him. It's all about him and his lack of leadership. He keeps trying to figure out what he should be doing and nothing occurs to him or his advisers. And he thinks George Bush is dumb.

I heard Doug Schoen on Greta Van Susteren tonight say that he needs to rally the country and bring us together in support of the people on the Gulf Coast, the families of the people who died and those working 24/7 to stop the spill.

It's the opposite of venting or being angry, making threats or blaming somebody. What made Rudy Giuliani such a hero after 9/11? It was mostly just leading the people at a time of disaster, confusion and fear. It was having competent people doing their jobs and reporting to him. It was coordinating responses. Although there was plenty of evidence that the Clinton administration had repeatedly failed to confront Al Qaeda, Bush and his staff never joined in the criticism. He knew that what we needed to leadership, a sense that there was a steady hand at the wheel.

Obama seems more like Ray Nagin sitting at home watching Katrina coverage on TV, when he should have been on top of things. He can't plug the well by executive order, but he could show that he he understood early on, without being told, that this was his problem as well as BP's. Instead he had to be told and then he didn't know what to do. His whole career before this has been about confrontation, demands and accusations, and pressuring concessions from the majority for the benefit of his client groups. He hasn't got a clue about actually leading all of the people. For him, everything is a Zero Sum game, but that's now what America should be about.